For God's sake, let us sit upon the ground
And tell sad stories of the death of Kings:
How some have been deposed, some slain in war,
Some haunted by the ghosts they have deposed,
Some poison'd by their wives, some sleeping kill'd;
All murder'd."
One good result of the Battle of Bosworth Field was that it ended the
"Wars of the Roses," which had been a curse to England for thirty years.
[Illustration: BULL BAITING STONE, ATHERSTONE.]
Bull-baiting was one of the favourite sports of our forefathers, the
bull being usually fastened to an iron ring in the centre of a piece of
ground, while dogs were urged on to attack it, many of them being killed
in the fight. This space of land was known as the Bull-ring, a name
often found in the centre of large towns at the present day. We knew a
village in Shropshire where the original ring was still to be seen
embedded in the cobbled pavement between the church and the village inn.
But at Atherstone the bull had been fastened to a large stone, still to
be seen, but away from the road, which had now been diverted from its
original track.
The ancient whipping-post, along with the stocks, which had
accommodation for three persons, had found their last resting-place
inside the old market-hall.
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